The first reports arrived at the end of April, in 1858.
Messengers from the border rode hard into Cetinje, their horses foaming, eyes wide from days without sleep.
"The Turks march!"
they cried, their voices echoing through the mountain capital.
"Thirteen thousand, banners of Scutari and Herzegovina, pushing north they mean to head for Vilusi and Grahovo!"
The words spread like fire through the stone streets.
Shops closed, church bells rang, men fetched muskets from above hearths, and boys barely grown stood straighter at the thought of war.
Prince Danilo himself summoned the council, his voice fierce but edged with desperation.
"Montenegro will not kneel. We will answer steel with steel. Muster every able-bodied man!"
The tally was grim.
At most, five thousand Montenegrins could be armed and assembled in days, a brave but thin shield against the tide rolling up from the south.
Yet their spirit was iron.
What none of them knew—not even Danilo himself—was that another army stirred in the shadows.
In the caverns of Elias's mountain citadel, drums thundered in rhythm.
Columns of black-clad soldiers assembled by torchlight.
One thousand filed toward the northern passes, their boots striking like hammers on stone.
Each bore rifles that gleamed under the flickering light, bayonets fixed, casing pouches pack with casing ready to be loaded and shot into the incoming Ottomans.
These men would march to Grahovo and Vilusi, not to replace the Montenegrins, but to join them—to stiffen the fragile line with steel and firepower beyond the imagination of their foes.
At the same hour, another two thousand slipped southward in silence, their orders sealed by Elias himself.
Their task was not defense but conquest.
Podgorica, the jewel of the valley, would be taken in the confusion of battle as its garrison forces will have been lost in the battles of the north.
From there, they would press deeper, striking into Albanian lands the Sultan still claimed but rarely controlled.
For Elias, this was more than war.
This was a chessboard, and every move carried weight beyond the battlefield.
Lands won in blood could be bargained for in court.
Titles, ports, estates—these he would demand for his "men" after the war was won, embedding his shadow realm openly into Montenegro's body politic.
Panic ruled in Cetinje, while a calm sense of control resided in Elias's HQ.
If things went to plan, not only would Montenegro finally have the rest of the world recognize it independance within Europe, but the other balkan regions still within the Ottoman empires control would start to wake up and realize that they didnt need to live as the Sultans slaves but instead could obtain their own freedom.
~
By the second week of May, the two armies collided finally.
At Vilusi the Ottomans came first, dark waves of infantry cresting the hills, red banners snapping in the wind, drums booming like thunder.
Their vanguard alone numbered more than the entire Montenegrin host.
The defenders stood on rocky slopes, beards bristling, muskets primed, their red caps bright against the gray stone.
Behind them, hidden in the gullies and woods, Elias's black ranks waited.
The first Ottoman volleys cracked the air.
Montenegrins fell, their muskets answered with ragged fire.
The line wavered.
Then Elias gave the signal.
From the shadows came a roar of rifles, sharp, disciplined, unbroken.
Ottoman soldiers dropped in rows as if cut by an invisible scythe, hundreds dying all at the same time with the Ottoman commanders becoming unnerved about the accuracy of the Montenegrin militia.
Confusion rippled through their ranks—afterall they were of a grand empire, so why was it that in just the first volley of fire had their side lost dozens of men, and that wasnt all...?
Again the rifles spoke, and again, and with every volley the slopes of Vilusi grew slick with blood.
For hours the battle raged.
The Ottomans pressed forward with numbers, but each charge broke against the wall of fire, only to respond with cannonfire.
Montenegrin shouts mingled with the disciplined calls of Elias's soldiers, the two forces fighting as one though only one understood the full measure of the war being waged.
By nightfall, the Ottomans staggered back, leaving heaps of dead on the field.
Vilusi held.
At Grahovo, the story repeated.
Again the Ottomans came in waves, again the Montenegrins braced for annihilation, and again the black-uniformed legion struck from the flanks like a blade drawn from the dark.
The price was heavy—hundreds of Montenegrins lay dead, the cost was not light.
But the line did not break, and instead the Ottoman aggressors had succumbed to extensive casualties.
More than half of their number had been cut down, after just two battles, driven up by the refusal to retreat against a foe they viewed to be vastly inferior to themselves.
That is until the 2nd day since battle commenced, when Hussein Pasha called for a parley and offered a truce and the end to hostilities.
However why would the winning side agree to a truce, and so the Grand Duke and commander-in-chief of the Montenegrin forces refused, but still offering token humanity allowing the Ottomans to return to the field of battle to collect and dispose of their dead.
On the morning of May 13th, started the final battle of the Montenegrin forces, as the Ottomans received military support from Bosnia, but emboldened by their extensive victories the days before the Monenegrin army alongside Elias's men, chose to attack rather than defend.
With superior infantry forces they only need fear the Ottomans Artillery, but against the onrushing thousands the artillery could only take down so many.
With the army managing to capture the cannons, while also managing to take down the field commander Kadri Pasha, the battle was all but won.
In the end of the estimated 13,000 soldiers who had entered Montenegrin territory less than 4,000 managed to flee the field of battle, meanwhile away from the battlefield the fleeing ottomans would become shocked to know in the days they had been away marching off to war, their homes had been taken over instead.
In just a matter of days, Elias and his two thousand men, had marched behind the Ottoman invaders, counter-invading and with little resistance captured the city of Podgorica, before leaving a simple garrison force behind and marching on.
Day after day more towns and village fell after meager resistance to the invaders.
Koplik, Shkoder, until finally his marching men reached Lezhe.
Reports were passed through official channels informing the Prince of the movement of 'local' forces who had taken up arms against the ottomans, each day more reports came in the more proud the prince became of his people.
Not only had thousands risen up to fight in field battle agains the great ottoman host, hundreds more had taken it upon themselves to drive a knife into the ottomans backs.
when time finally came for negotiation, he would be in a far better position than origionally, and as such Montenegros future was bright.